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It's funny, the things I don't think to write about, but my kids have all these food allergies. When I was first feeding Kid A real food I couldn't figure out what on earth to feed him, since he was allergic to pretty much everything it seemed, dairy, soy, fish, nuts, and citrus fruits, and at the time, wheat. Okay, maybe not everything, but it cuts out a lot. Pizza, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, tofu... a ton of stuff. I mean, what do you pack for a road trip? The poor kid got so burnt out on bananas on our first trip across the country with him that he wouldn't touch a banana for two more years.

Now I feel a lot more confident, especially since the older two have begun to be able to eat wheat. And I've found that tupperware is a treasure unlike any other. With tupperware you can travel at ease with chili, with rice and beans, with stir fry, with any food your heart desires. When I first realized that Kid A had a lot of allergies, I was worried (and friends of mine, one in particular, were even more worried) that he would feel left out, that he'd be traumatized by not being able to scarf down foods that so many kids take for granted. Cream puffs. Ice cream. Orange marmalade. Sushi.

Of course, they don't. Mostly because we don't make a big deal about it, and we work our way around it. They love rice milk, we give them pizza without cheese, and most baking can be done without milk, and now, miraculously there is ice cream made out of rice! And it tastes great! And one day, I hope, my kids will be able to eat all the things they can't eat now. Sometimes Kid A is a little confused about that fuzzy universe of food he can't eat. The other day at the table we were sitting around eating pasta, and I had put cheese on mine. Kid A watched me stir it around, and then asked, "When I'm older, I can have cheese?"

"I hope so," I answered.

"Can I have cheese milk?"

"Well... cheese is made from milk, but there's no such thing as cheese milk. That would be yucky."

"What about cheese juice? Is that good?"

"Um. No. There's no cheese juice, either."

"How about... cheese milk? If we just put cheese in milk? Do you like that?"

"I'll tell you what, kiddo. When you grow up you can have all the cheese milk and cheese juice you like."